"Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars." – Khalil Gibran

Brianna Williams

I’ve never been one to share, when I think about it I get upset. I think its time that I admit that I have AS and its not going anywhere. I figure letting people read this is a way of overcoming the fear of judgments as AS is classed as an “invisible disease”. I got diagnosed with AS when I was 17, but the pain started after a visit to the chiropractor when I was 14. Don’t get me wrong chiropractors may be beneficial to some, but I wish I knew I had the gene and that AS could be activated at any moment. When the chiro used the applicator on my neck, from that day forward everything got worse. I started getting headaches, swelling and pain I never felt before. We started going to the doctors but we were told it was just growing pains and it would go away. It’s only now that I know that that’s when my Ankylosing Spondylitis activated and changed my life. After almost 3 years of doctors telling my mum and I there’s nothing I could do, it’s basically in my head, we got recommended to a rheumatologist by a family friend who had been on a clinical trial for AS. Within 5 minutes of talking to him he diagnosed me with AS, it’s like everything made sense. We then went onto do the blood tests can I came up with the markers for AS. I’ve accepted it now, I know I have AS for a reason, just waiting to meet that reason. God and my mum have gotten me through this first haul of the long race that is Ankylosing Spondylitis.